clones

The U.S. Marine Corps is testing the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) as a long-range one-way strike drone. Based on a design reverse-engineered from the Iranian-designed Shahed-136, these drones have already been deployed by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) to the Middle East, which you can read more about in our deep dive here.

The Marines are sponsoring a test of the LUCAS drones at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground (YPG), the Army stated. The move comes as the Corps is working to increase its own one-way attack drone capabilities and the Pentagon is pushing for more drone use across the military in the wake of their ubiquity in the Ukraine war. The Pentagon is hoping that the LUCAS drones can be quickly and cheaply built and delivered at scale.

“Harkening back to the Liberty Ship production model that rapidly produced thousands of cargo ships during World War II, testers hope that the LUCAS will eventually serve a similar function in the new era of warfare,” Col. Nicholas Law, Director of Experimentation in the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research & Engineering, said in a release. “It’s not a single manufacturer: it’s designed to go to multiple manufacturers to be built in mass quantities.”

We laid out this exact concept months ago, along with our in-depth case for rushing mass production of American Shahed-136 copies, that you can read in full here.

Law envisions these drones as ultimately able to be used on dynamic targets, such as vehicles on the move or targets of interest that the drones find themselves with a degree of autonomy.

“Once we start weaponization and automated target recognition, we can have a target that is a representation of a real target,” he explained. Law didn’t provide any specifics, and we have reached out to the Army and Marines for more information.

You can read our deep dive on how artificial intelligence will revolutionize lower-end drones like LUCAS in exactly this way in our special feature linked here. But the fact that LUCAS can be equipped with a satellite datalink means that it could hunt for and find targets of interest over great distances all on its own, while still allowing a human operator to approve a strike.

In addition to strikes, LUCAS drones equipped with nose-mounted gimbal cameras can also be deployed to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). With an estimated price tag for the platform itself of about $35,000, these LUCAS variants could provide an affordable, attritable platform for ISR. The LUCAS drones we have seen also have swarming capabilities — the ability to work cooperatively as a team — which can make them especially effective at attack operations and acting as decoys to confuse enemy air defenses.

The one detail Law provided about the drones being tested at YPG is that they are not yet equipped with warheads.

“The warhead that will eventually be integrated into LUCAS isn’t constructed yet, but it will also be low-cost and mass produced by multiple manufacturers,” Law posited. “Evaluators are currently testing LUCAS with inert payloads.”

CENTCOM declined comment on whether its LUCAS drones currently deployed have kinetic payloads and referred us to statements previously made that they have been deployed as one-way attack drones. It’s possible that they feature more improvised, less powerful warheads at this time. They can also just fly into their targets to damage them — especially fragile ones like radar arrays.

As we noted in our original piece on the topic, CENTCOM stood up Task Force Scorpion Strike (TFSS), the military’s first one-way attack drone squadron, to operate the LUCAS drones. Roughly 10 feet long with a wingspan of eight feet, was developed by Arizona-based SpektreWorks in cooperation with the U.S. military primarily as a target drone to emulate a Shahed-136-like threat, but also as a weapon in its own right.

There are, however, other companies involved in providing LUCAS variants. For instance, Griffon Aerospace has been pitching a Shahed-like drone called the MQM-172 Arrowhead to America’s armed forces.

The company, which is building the air frames, has already provided them to the Pentagon for use as both strike weapons and targets, Griffon spokesman Dan Beck told us Wednesday. However, it is unclear whether they have been fitted with kinetic payloads or how widespread their testing and use is across the military. We have reached out to the Pentagon to learn more.

Beck said Kraken Kinetics is providing the payload for these LUCAS variants. We’ve reached out to them as well.

While Beck declined to provide many details of his company’s work with the Pentagon, he did offer us some insights about the Arrowhead’s specifications.

Considered a long-range LUCAS version, the Arrowhead can carry a payload of up to 100 pounds as far as 1,500 nautical miles, Beck told us. That’s akin to the Shahed-136 drones produced by Iran and modified by Russia for its use against Ukraine. The current LUCAS models deployed to the Middle East are smaller and have significantly less endurance and about half the payload capacity.

While the general concept has existed for decades, similar delta-winged one-way attack munitions are steadily emerging globally among allies and potential foes alike, including in China. Russia is also said to be assisting North Korea in establishing its own domestic capacity to produce Shahed-136s, or derivatives thereof, as part of an exchange for Pyongyang’s help in fighting Ukraine.

Beck also told us that Griffon has been “flying these airplanes very frequently” and have been launched pneumatically and from trucks. There are plans to use rocket-assisted takeoff (RATO), but that hasn’t been tested yet, he added. Asked about whether these have been tested with kinetic payloads, Beck declined comment.

Though these types of weapons have a long development history, Iranian officials mocked the U.S. for copying their design.

“There is no greater source of pride and honor than seeing the self-proclaimed technological superpowers kneel before the Iranian drone and clone it,” Brig. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi boasted to reporters on Tuesday.

The reality is that Iran didn’t really come up with this configuration, it dates back decades to a western design and Israel largely pioneered the operational use of the long-range one-way attack munition.

IAI’s MBT HARPY System

With LUCAS’s sudden deployment to the Middle East as a kinetic weapon and now the Marines testing the concept to see if it fits their needs, the future of America’s Shahed-136 knock-off looks remarkably bright. And we could be seeing just the budding of what will become a mass produced staple weapon that will be deployed en-masse across Europe and the Pacific.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

In a quick follow-up to our breaking post on the Pentagon sending Shahed-136 clones to the Middle East, specifically “to flip the script” on Iran, we are getting new images of what configurations the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) kamikaze drones that will be used by Task Force Scorpion Strike (TFSS) exist in. The adaptability of the basic Shahed-136 platform is a key feature we highlighted in our extensive case for the U.S. pursuing large quantities of these drones, which you can read in full here. Since publishing that piece, top uniformed officers have made it clear that this capability is indeed needed.

In images posted by the Pentagon, we see two variants of LUCAS. One is not of particular note, it seems geared to strike the static targets we have become accustomed to for this type of weapon. The other features two very interesting details. It has what appears to be a gimbaled camera system mounted on its nose and, most importantly, a miniature beyond-line-of-sight satellite datalink mounted on its spine. This is a major development that would allow these weapons to not only be controlled dynamically after launch at great distances, but also to hit moving targets and targets of opportunity.

In addition, this capability would help enable swarm tactics, where the drones work to attack targets cooperatively with their progress monitored and altered in real-time by human operators, regardless of whether they have the satellite terminal or not. This is made possible by providing simpler, lighter line-of-sight datalinks on the drones equipped with warheads only, which then connect line-of-sight to the drone carrying the satellite communications terminal, acting as a force-multiplying networking hub. This also means you can have many simple drones paired with a much smaller number of more costly ones equipped with cameras and networking equipment, but achieve the same overall effect as if they all had the more advanced capabilities. This modularity which is ‘greater than the sum of its parts’ is a central tenet of emerging drone warfare TWZ highlighted a decade ago.

One of the major limitations of Shahed-136s being used by Russia en masse in Ukraine is the lack of beyond-line-of-sight control. Russia has adapted some of these drones, and has done so at an increasing rate, to operate with line-of-sight control, giving them significantly reduced range to operate from their launch points, but the ability for human pilots to hunt for and strike dynamic targets. Russia has also leveraged cellular data modems to provide patchwork man-in-the-loop control far deeper into Ukrainian territory for the same purpose. These capabilities allow for Shaheds to execute new types of missions and present new kinds of threats to Ukrainian forces. You can read all about these developments, which we have been covering for years, here.

Now, America’s LUCAS drones, cloned from the Shahed-136, will feature a far more advanced beyond-line-of-sight control capability, via satellite datalink, something that is just now popping up in Ukraine as well.

This will allow them to do the things defense officials told us they could do in our piece on the deployment:

“I do not want to get into numbers [of drones fielded], but they are definitely based and delivered at an amount that provides us with a significant level of capability,” the official added. The LUCAS design includes features that allow for “autonomous coordination, making them suitable for swarm tactics and network-centric strikes.”

“Costing approximately $35,000 per platform, LUCAS is a low-cost, scalable system that provides cutting-edge capabilities at a fraction of the cost of traditional long-range U.S. systems that can deliver similar effects,” Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a CENTCOM spokesperson, also told TWZ. “The drone system has an extensive range and the ability to operate beyond line of sight, providing significant capability across CENTCOM’s vast operating area.”

Seeing as swarms can be tailored to various objectives, with mixing and matching BLOS networking enabled units with strikers, and placing them in real time to minimize risk and maximize effect, America’s Shaheds should be significantly more survivable and effective. The ability to work together, reacting to their environment, and leverage real-time intelligence gathered by the full gamut of U.S. and allied assets, are even larger advantages. This is in addition to pairing them with combined arms tactics, from electronic warfare to kinetic strikes, to ensure they get to their target areas. Even if some die to air defenses, that can be viewed as a win, depending on what engages them. Consuming costly and finite effectors is a feature, not a bug, for these relatively cheap weapons, as you can read all about in our larger feature.

It’s also worth putting this into an Iranian context. The U.S. and Israel, primarily, shot down nearly all of Iran’s long-range kamikaze drones launched during the war in June and previous crises post October 7, 2023. But that required large numbers of advanced fighters and SAM systems that all leveraged a deeply networked data sharing and airborne early warning and control. Iran has none of this. They are indeed outright vulnerable to this threat. Hence the whole “flip the script” commentary.

There could be other configurations we have not seen yet, as well, but the two we have seen would cover the capabilities stated to us so far. If another configuration exists, it would most likely be for anti-radiation applications, where it can detect, home in on, and destroy air defense systems. This is a primary capability that dates back to the dawn of this kind of munition, which you can read about here. Anti-radiation seeker-equipped drones of this class can loiter deep inside enemy territory and wait for an air defense system to start radiating electromagnetic energy, then sniff it out and destroy it autonomously by homing in on those emissions. It’s also possible that some of the LUCAS drones have basic electronic surveillance measures (ESM) and are capable of using their networking to collectively geolocate radar emissions. If this is the case, the entire swarm can be turned into a SEAD/DEAD force on demand.

Finally, it’s worth noting that Israel likely leveraged its long history with these types of weapons in its interdiction campaign against Iranian missiles and launchers, as well as air defenses and other targets, during its war with Iran last summer. This is likely at least a partial influence on CENTCOM’s push to get these weapons into the field for offensive purposes. Up until today they have only been relegated to research and development and target work acting as Shahed-136 surrogates.

But the bottom line here is that the U.S. is not just sending Shahed clones that can blindly hit fixed targets, they are sending networked, man-in-the-loop weapons capable of swarming and executing coordinated tactics on the fly, including chasing down targets of opportunity and relaying vital reconnaissance far beyond the range of line-of-sight radios.

Contact the author: Tyler@twz.com

The U.S. military has stood up its first operational unit armed with Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) kamikaze drones, a design reverse-engineered from the Iranian-designed Shahed-136, in the Middle East. The establishment of Task Force Scorpion Strike (TFSS) is a major development, and offers a way “to flip the script on Iran,” according to a U.S. official. Earlier this year, TWZ laid out a detailed case for why America’s armed forces should be investing heavily in rapidly-produced Shahed-136 clones as an adaptable capability that could be critical in future operations globally, as you can read here.

U.S. Central Command announced the creation of TFSS today, which it said is a direct response to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance” initiative that kicked off earlier this year. TFSS falls more specifically under the auspices of U.S. Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT), which oversees U.S. special operations activities across the Middle East. CENTCOM’s Rapid Employment Joint Task Force (REJTF), established in September to help fast-track the fielding of new capabilities in the region, was also involved.

You can read our analysis of the capabilities of these drones in our latest story on the topic here.

TFSS consists of about two dozen troops that will oversee the establishment and operations of drones, the U.S. official told us, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. The delta wing LUCAS drone, which is roughly 10 feet long and has a wingspan of eight feet, was developed by Arizona-based SpektreWorks in cooperation with the U.S. military.

“I do not want to get into numbers [of drones fielded], but they are definitely based and delivered at an amount that provides us with a significant level of capability,” the official added. The LUCAS design includes features that allow for “autonomous coordination, making them suitable for swarm tactics and network-centric strikes.”

“Costing approximately $35,000 per platform, LUCAS is a low-cost, scalable system that provides cutting-edge capabilities at a fraction of the cost of traditional long-range U.S. systems that can deliver similar effects,” Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a CENTCOM spokesperson, also told TWZ. “The drone system has an extensive range and the ability to operate beyond line of sight, providing significant capability across CENTCOM’s vast operating area.”

“LUCAS drones deployed by CENTCOM have an extensive range and are designed to operate autonomously,” CENTCOM added in a press release. “They can be launched with different mechanisms to include catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff, and mobile ground and vehicle systems.”

“We can push them from various points,” the U.S. official told TWZ when asked about whether the LUCAS drones could be launched from ships. “They can be launched through various mechanisms, and land is not the only place from which to launch these.”

As an aside here, TWZ has previously explored in great depth the arguments for adding a variety of drone types to the arsenals of U.S. Navy ships to provide additional layers of defense, as well as enhanced strike, electronic warfare, intelligence-gathering, and networking capabilities, which you can find here.

Overall, the LUCAS drone’s core design was based directly on the Shahed-136.

“The U.S. military got hold of an Iranian Shahed,” according to the U.S. official. “We took a look and reverse-engineered it. We are working with a number of U.S. companies in the innovation space.”

“The LUCAS drone is the product of that [reverse-engineering] effort,” they added. “It pretty much follows the Shahed design.”

SpektreWorks’ website provides basic specifications for a related target drone design called the FLM 136, which has a stated maximum range of 444 miles and can stay aloft for up to six hours. Its total payload capacity, not counting fuel, is 40 pounds, and it cruises at a speed of around 74 knots (with a dash speed of up to 105 knots). Whether these details reflect the capabilities of the operationalized LUCAS design is unclear.

For comparison, the baseline Shahed-136, which is powered by a small 50-horsepower internal combustion engine, has a top speed of around 100 knots (185 kilometers per hour) and a maximum range of approximately 1,242 miles (2,000 kilometers) while carrying an 88-pound (40-kilogram) warhead, according to the U.S. Army’s Operational Environment Data Integration Network (ODIN) training portal. It was designed to strike static targets based on targeting data programmed in before launch. Iran has shown additional versions over the years with other guidance options, as well as a jet-powered derivative. Russia also now produces a still-expanding array of variants and derivatives of this design, referred to locally as the Geran. Iran and Russia have both been notably working to integrate more dynamic targeting capabilities into their respective versions of the drone.

Iranian forces, as well as the country’s various regional proxies in the Middle East, have extensively employed variations of the Shahed-136 in combat in recent years, especially against targets in Israel. Russian forces routinely use their versions of the drones in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. U.S. military experience aiding in the defense of Israel, as well as observations from the war in Ukraine, have been key drivers in recent pushes to develop and field new drone and counter-drone capabilities, now including the LUCAS design.

Beyond the particulars of the LUCAS drones themselves, the confirmation that an operational American unit in the Middle East is now armed with them is a major development. Before now, at least publicly, the U.S. military had only shown concrete interest in LUCAS and similar designs for use as threat representative targets for testing and training purposes rather than as operational weapons.

“We are now at a point where not only are we building them in mass, but we have already based them in [the] Middle East for the first time,” the U.S. official stressed to TWZ. “In essence, we are able to flip the script on Iran.”

“I’ll let you read between the lines, but the fact that we are basing it where we are basing it, and the fact that we have seen what the Russians have done to Ukraine, what Iran has done to fomenting instability with the use of drone technology, the 12-Day War threats they posed to Israel and how partners and allies have to expend vast amounts of resources to defend against these attacks, we are now taking a page from their playbook and throwing it back at them,” the U.S. official continued. “In essence, Iran enjoyed overmatch and an advantage through the high volume of drone attacks they were able to effectively deploy, and they are hard to defend against at such a high volume.”

The video below includes a montage of clips from Iranian state media showing Shahed-136s being employed during an exercise.

To date, TFSS has not employed its LUCAS drones in real combat operations, but they have been launched at test targets in the region to demonstrate their capabilities, according to the U.S. official.

“We are shoring up our defense, and a good defense can sometimes be a good offense, as well,” they added. “We are adding an offensive firepower capability that we have seen, [that] can be effective, especially when you have a country [that] previously wreaked havoc with this technology, now vulnerable.”

In addition to Iran, “we don’t have a problem hitting the [Iranian-backed] Houthis [in Yemen], we could throw it in their face as well,” the U.S. official continued. However, “with the Houthis, you have more of a target-find problem, [rather] than sending a bunch of things into Iran with lots of stuff to hit.”

The official also noted that the U.S. government currently has a formal ceasefire in place with the Houthis.

As mentioned, the benefits that Shahed-type drones could offer U.S. forces extend well beyond the Middle East. This includes the sheer mass of additional strike capacity and the ability, by extension, to overwhelm finite enemy defensive assets. This all aligns well with broader efforts across the services to extend the scale and scope of their long-range fires capabilities, especially when it comes to fielding new, lower-cost, and readily producible weapon systems. TWZ‘s feature in September explored these realities in deep detail.

These are capabilities that could also be steadily built upon as time goes on, especially if the designs are highly modular and put emphasis on open architectures for the integration of new and improved capabilities. As we wrote:

“Modern positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) technologies will only improve upon this resilience to electronic warfare, even for those drones configured to strike with precision. Basic infusion of artificial intelligence (AI) is fast approaching over the horizon for lower-end drones, which will enable adaptive autonomous navigation without GPS and strikes even on mobile targets of opportunity. Again, you can read all about this in our previous feature linked here. Electronic warfare will not be able to impact these systems.”

“The key takeaway is that having tens of thousands of real threats that cost a fraction of the price of a standard cruise or ballistic missile, ready to gobble up precious air defense effectors, will be an absolutely critical factor in any major future conflict.”

“We will continue to develop these platforms,” like LUCAS, the U.S. official also told us. “One of the upsides to them is that they are not only scalable systems, but they can be developed and improved over time.”

SpektreWorks is not the only company in this marketspace. In the United States, at least one other firm, Griffon Aerospace, has been pitching a Shahed-esque drone called the MQM-172 Arrowhead to America’s armed forces.

While the general concept has existed for decades, similar delta-winged one-way attack munitions are steadily emerging globally among allies and potential foes alike, including in China. Russia is also said to be assisting North Korea in establishing its own domestic capacity to produce Shahed-136s, or derivatives thereof, as part of an exchange for Pyongyang’s help in fighting Ukraine.

At the same time, while today’s announcement about TFSS and its LUCAS drones is significant, it is still being presented heavily as a regionally limited capability to be employed by special operations forces. Whether or not there are efforts to stand up similar units elsewhere within the U.S. military in other locales is unclear. Top U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force officers have openly expressed an extremely high desire to field a Shahed-like kamikaze drone capability as soon as possible.

Still, the U.S. military’s standing up of its first operational unit armed with Shahed-like long-range kamikaze drones is a major development — one that has a high chance of serving as a springboard to much broader fielding of similar capabilities.

Update: 9:16 AM Eastern –

The Pentagon published three photos of the LUCAS drones on its image-sharing portal, which you can see below. We will have an analysis of these weapons shortly.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com